Extraterrestrial Homesick Blues
by Javanyet
Summary: Tyler sees a new side of Angie, and Donovan sees a new side of Tyler. Following Ridealong, part of my AU Final Battle series. 8/9 - Just a title change!


Though by now he knew what she'd run from and what she'd left behind, Ham had never seen Angie cry. Oh, there was that explosion of something the morning they were leaving that cheap motel on the way to L.A., but he'd redirected that pretty easily. It was just a flameout, anyway, and meant to be redirected.

A couple of times, since their arrival in L.A the day before, he'd come upon her by chance when she was engaged in some task or other. He saw her pause in the middle of doing something, or stop still in mid-stride, and could hear her breath getting ragged. He never saw her face those times, and if it looked like she was about to turn his way he pulled back in the doorway or around the corner and pretended to have missed it. The need for a certain kind of privacy was something he understood. So he never asked if she was all right, and the look on her face told him she'd lie if he did and tell him things were okay. The couple of kisses they'd shared the night before hadn't flung open wide any new doors; it was as if they'd just stepped outside of their respective spheres and met in the middle, then retreated again with the doors only slightly ajar.

Tonight she was sitting on one of the narrow benches by the fake corral. The previous day had ended with a mad evacuation from the deathtrap that the lizards had discovered, and all other planning had been postponed until they were resettled. With no strategies to occupy her, Ham guessed the Old World was playing in Angie's head (like it used to play in his head a very long time ago). He could guess she was thinking of night in her home city, a city that had been replaced by nothing anyone like her wanted to know about. Not that there were many who had gotten out alive.

Ham straddled the bench to sit facing her, but she didn't turn toward him when he spoke.

"Homesick." No question mark.

He said it in that very quiet, almost-soothing voice so Angie nodded a little, then made a half hearted attempt to shrug it off.

With a solid shake of his head Ham slid closer and pulled her into his arms. He thought she might pull away and insist on being "okay" but privacy had its limits, or so he'd suddenly decided. She didn't pull away, though, instead she leaned against him, wrapped her hands around his arm. She didn't say anything but he felt the tears against his neck. He inhaled a deep breath that tightened his arms around her, then a quieter exhale ending in a brief brush of his lips against her head. He could feel her struggling to keep from letting too much go.

"Stupid, huh," she managed to gulp after a few seconds, then she did pull away from him. "No home left to be sick about. _Stupid_."

"Not stupid," he corrected firmly.

She turned to look at him, her face blank and eyes overflowing, and whispered as if sharing a secret, "I keep seeing it, feeling it and smelling and hearing it, I try not to, but I do, Tyler, you gotta tell me how to _stop_. Can you tell me? Is it like being still and breathing?" She so wanted him to say yes even if she didn't expect it. She really hadn't expected much of anything about him, so maybe he'd surprise her again.

He shook his head, no, but didn't say the word out loud.

No surprise there. Angie turned away again. "Yeah, well it was worth a shot," she muttered, mostly to herself. She started to stand up, but he reached out and pulled her back.

"C'mere." When he wrapped her up against him again Angie wilted in his arms, too frayed to keep pretending it was okay. It wasn't okay, it would _never_ be okay again, not the way it used to be. When the tears came he didn't rock her or pet her or say empty words. He just held her, still and steady, his chin resting on her head.

And unlike that first time her shell had cracked, he didn't tell her how to focus. He didn't offer the edgy wisdom and hard logic of mercenary experience, just the presence of someone who understood who she was and what she'd lost because he'd seen it so often before and knew there was no help for it. She cried like an abandoned child, for the first time since her wild drive away from her burning home, grateful for Ham's silence and for everything she wasn't required to explain. Like so many other personal luxuries, embarrassment wasn't an option anymore.

* * *

Looking for Ham Tyler, Mike stepped out on the front porch of the ghost town hotel and found Julie instead.

"Hey, you seen Tyler? We're supposed to re-check the weapons inventory for the raid on my mother's house." Then he followed Julie's gaze and caught a glimpse of Ham straddling the bench in the near distance, his back to them. At the moment Angie was blocked from Mike's view. "Oh great, Tyler is stargazing." He raised cupped hands to his mouth to shout an appropriately annoyed summons.

"Mike, wait," Julie pulled his arm down and turned him to face her. "Not now."

"Whaddaya mean 'not now'? _He's_ the one who set the time, he's the one who has to check and recheck everything a dozen times because according to him nothing's right until _he_ says it's right." Where weapons and explosives were concerned that was a given, but Donovan didn't have to like it.

"Angie's with him," Julie told him, "she's been having a rough time."

"She seems fine to me," Mike observed. "Besides, we're all having a rough time. Anyway I can't imagine how Tyler could possibly help, he's a little rough around the edges for Dear Abby. Unless of course she's looking to work it off by tossing a few grenades." He knew she'd been traveling with Tyler and Farber, but didn't believe that there was anything more than casual convenience involved. Nobody that quiet, that book-and-computer-geeky could get attached to a bomb-setter like Tyler. Mike turned back again and was ready to call out when he noticed something. In the fading light he could see Angie now that Tyler's position had shifted a little. She was hanging onto Tyler like she was drowning, and he looked like he wasn't going to let her. Mike was about to toss off another sarcastic remark, something about who'd peg that land shark as a make-out artist, when he heard the sound of Angie's weeping through the thick chirping of the crickets. When Donovan turned to look back at Julie in frank confusion he nearly bumped into her.

"Do I have to say 'shut up'," she asked him in a flat and quiet voice, "or do you get it now?"

Mike glanced over his shoulder again, then turned back to Julie. "I hope you're not gonna shoot me for being surprised. I mean, the Ham Tyler I know just doesn't have that kind of thing in him"

Julie gestured over Mike's shoulder toward the scene beyond. "Well maybe that's the Ham Tyler somebody else knows," Julie suggested. "And maybe 'that kind of thing' is reserved for somebody who sees him a little differently than you." All she knew about this Ham Tyler was what she'd heard from Mike, so there were probably some parts missing from the picture. If she'd learned anything since the Visitors arrived, it was that some people (and not-people) were very good at showing only as much of themselves as they wanted you to see. It was obvious Tyler was one of those and wondering why was a waste of time, and none of her business anyway as long as he seemed committed to helping them.

A bit chastened, Mike conceded, "Fine. I'll wait for him to find me, then." He laughed under his breath. "Something tells me Tyler'll juggle hardass and softy well enough to still get the job done, no matter what."

"Look Mike," Julie warned him earnestly, "I really don't think it would be a good idea to mention this to him."

Mike's shocked response to the suggestion was only a little exaggerated. "Are you kidding? I'd rather turn myself in to the lizards. At least they'd kill me _before_ they dissect me."

* * *

By the time the sun was gone Angie had cried herself out but it was a few more minutes before she let go of Ham's arm and sat up, wiping her eyes on her sleeve.

"Thanks, Tyler." He was watching her, those chocolate eyes taking it all in.

"Don't thank me. I'm not doing you any favors."

So few words, so many meanings. "That's okay, I don't need any." She wiped both hands over her face, and then on her jeans, then offered a weak smile. "I just need some quiet sometimes."

He nodded and reached out to brush a couple of stray tears from her face. "It's in short supply lately, but I think I can spare some."

"Me too, if you ever come up short," she promised. He just sat there looking at her, a studying-the-details kind of look. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Damned if I know." He leaned forward and cocked his head to look more closely, as if he might have missed something. "Damned if I know," he repeated and kissed her almost the way he had that first time. Innate, and easy. This time though it was deeper, and instead of a light hand on her face he wrapped one arm around her waist, the other hand cradling the back of her head. And this time she had time to respond, not the anxious way she'd done when she'd grabbed him by the jacket that night, but easy. Damned if she knew either, but here was one person in this New World that didn't confuse her, and she trusted him. She closed her eyes and lost herself in the unexpected (but not really, not now) warmth of someone who shouldn't make any sense to her at all, but did.

After a longish minute Ham let Angie go and was surprised by a twinge of reluctance. He tried to remember when the last time was that he'd kissed a woman just because there was no good reason not to, not because it was a means to an end. No agenda, no deception. No rage to jump on, get in, get finished, and go. Just a minute in the dark that was like a vacation from life and death. Christ it had been a _long_ time, if it had ever happened at all.

God, he was easy to be with, Angie thought. She wanted to tell him she thought so, then realized he must already know she did. So instead she said, "Know what Tyler? You're okay, for a Soldier-of-Fortune type."

He snorted a harsh laugh even as he brushed her hair back, fingers trailing for just a second against her face. "I don't read that crap. It's written by keyboard commandos for gutless wannabes. Which reminds me," he hit the light on his watch. "I'm late for an appointment with Gooder."

"He's kind of a pain in the ass, isn't he?" Angie admitted. "He's all dedicated to the cause and all that, and it seems like he's on the ball, he's just, well, kind of self-righteous. And a little too mouthy for my taste."

"A _little_ mouthy," Ham smirked as he rose, and Angie followed. "Gooder is the _opposite_ of quiet. I think it's against his religion." He leaned closer and looked Angie in the eye. "You okay now?"

She smiled, shrugged. "Yeah. Guess you got the magic touch, Tyler. You and that guy in Bangkok."

"He didn't teach me _everything_," Ham assured her as they approached the movie-set hotel that served as living quarters and the stable that functioned as a warehouse. "But we can cover that later. Right now I got work to do, and working with Gooder makes it even _more_ work."

Angie laughed to herself as she went to the hotel. She could tell already that Tyler would rather be drawn and quartered than admit even the most grudging respect for Donovan.

* * *

"Sorry I'm late," Ham muttered as he appeared in the stable/supply room, and braced himself for "a little mouthy".

Donovan shrugged. "I figured you got held up somewhere, so I got a start on things." He indicated the long table where concealable weapons, ammo, and maps of his mother's grounds were laid out. "Tell me if it checks out and we'll be ready to roll." The snatch-and-copy had been planned for the night after next, using one of his mother's dinner parties for key Visitors as cover. More distraction for her, easier for him to get in and out, and in and out again.

Ham found Donovan's reasonableness a little jarring, and he eyed Mike with suspicion. When no punch line was forthcoming, he relaxed. "Okay Gooder, let's see if you got it right the first time."


End file.
